From Mutual Aid to Welfare State: How Fraternal Societies Fought Poverty and Taught Character

Mutual aid was one of the cornerstones of social
welfare in the United States until the early 20th century. The
fraternal society was a leading example. The statistical record of
fraternalism was impressive. A conservative estimate is that
one-third of adult American males belonged to lodges in 1910. A
fraternal analogue existed for virtually every major service of the
modern welfare state including orphanages, hospitals, job
exchanges, homes for the elderly, and scholarship programs.

But
societies also gave benefits that were much less quantifiable. By
joining a lodge, an initiate adopted, at least implicitly, a set of
survival values.

Societies dedicated themselves to the
advancement of mutualism, self-reliance, business training, thrift,
leadership skills, self-government, self-control, and good moral
character. These values, which can fit under the rubric of social
capital, reflected a kind of fraternal consensus that cut across
such seemingly intractable divisions as race, sex, and income.

The
record of five societies that thrived at or near the turn of the
century illustrates the many variants of this system. Each had a
distinct membership base. Two of the societies, the Independent
Order of Saint Luke and the United Order of True Reformers, were
all-black. Both had been founded by ex-slaves after the Civil War
and specialized initially in sickness and burial insurance. The
other societies had entirely white memberships. The Loyal Order of
Moose was an exclusively male society that emphasized sickness and
burial benefits. It became best known during the 20th century for
its orphanage, Mooseheart, near Aurora, Illinois. The Security
Benefit Association (originally the Knights and Ladies of Security)
followed in a similar tradition but broke from the mainstream by
allowing men and women to join on equal terms. During the 1910s and
the 1920s, the Knights and Ladies of Security established a
hospital, a home for the elderly, and an orphanage all in a single
location near Topeka. The Ladies of the Maccabees was an all-white,
all-female society. It provided such health benefits as surgical
care. It is worth noting that the women who belonged to these
societies, regarded themselves as members of fraternal rather than sororal societies. For them, fraternity,
much like liberty and equality, was the common heritage of both men
and women. To this end, an official of the Ladies of the Maccabees
asserted that "Fraternity in these modern days has been wrested
from its original significance and has come to mean a sisterhood,
as well as a brotherhood, in the human family."

These five societies, despite their other
differences, showed some striking similarities in outlook. With
perhaps slight changes in wording, the following statement, penned
by a member of the Security Benefit Association, was suitable to
each: "Its prime object is to promote the brotherhood of man, teach
fidelity to home and loved ones, loyalty to country and respect of
law, to establish a system for the care of the widows and orphans,
the aged and disabled, and enable every worthy member to protect
himself from the ills of life and make substantial provision
through co-operation with our members, for those who are nearest
and dearest."

Although these societies relied on nearly
identical terminology, the interpretations and applications often
diverged. Each found creative ways to customize such ideals as
thrift, self-reliance, and self-government to suit the special
needs and interests of its members. This behavior reached full
expression outside of the white-male fraternal mainstream. For
example, societies that catered to blacks and women used key credos
of the fraternal consensus to overcome disfranchisement,
segregation, and discrimination.

Regardless of other distinctions, the
theme of the loving and extended family found universal fraternal
appeal. According to the ritual of the Independent Order of Saint
Luke, all initiates were "members of the same family" pledged to
"stand by one another at all hazards." It specified that what we
"lack by the sacred ties of blood we make up by a solemn oath-bound
obligation, declaring ourselves sisters and brothers, children of
the same Father." The Loyal Order of Moose promoted its orphanage
by vowing that "this Order comes as a Mother to her children to
help them in their hour of trial."

Rituals often relied on the Bible to
impart lessons of fraternity. The Independent Order of Saint Luke
took its name from the Luke of the Gospels. An initiate vowed to
"be true and faithful to the Christian religion" and devote leisure
time to "searching the Holy Scriptures, so that I may become useful
and true to all mankind." The ritual of the Ladies of the Maccabees
drew inspiration from the Old Testament: "Like the Maccabees of old
we are marching forward, a mighty army, for the defense of our
loved ones and the protection of our homes."

All
the societies advocated self-reliance, a hallmark of fraternalism.
This objective was a centerpiece of the initiation ceremony of the
Independent Order of Saint Luke, which featured a symbolic journey
to Jerusalem. To foster humility, it required the candidate to wear
a torn white robe. Prior to the journey, a guide foretold what lay
ahead: "You may find the road rough and rugged, and you may meet
with disappointment and mistrust....You will find no friendly hand
extended, or kind advice given you on which to lean." The meaning
of the lesson was plain: "This is one of the times that
self-reliance must be exerted. You must seek to find the emblem of
the cross, with patience and unceasing energy as it is claimed
Helena possessed in searching for the cross of Calvary."

Unlike the Independent Order of St. Luke,
which admitted men and women on equal terms, the Ladies of the
Maccabees barred men from joining. One of the chief defenders of
this policy was Bina West, who was Supreme Commander of the
organization from 1911 to 1948. She recalled with some amusement
how several men from the parallel Knights of the Maccabees had
applied as honorary members. She responded that "L.O.T.M., which
means Ladies of the Maccabees, may also be construed to mean, Leave
Out Those Men."

For
the Ladies of the Maccabees, the all-female policy fortified
self-reliance, another pillar of the fraternal value consensus.
Elizabeth McGowan, a leading defender of male exclusion, asserted
that women who participated with the opposite sex in fraternal
auxiliaries, such as the Eastern Star of the Masons, often became
"timid in the presence of men of superior knowledge." As a result,
they "waive their rights and privileges and become reliant and
dependent....Thus, woman becomes irresponsible."

She
concluded that such a woman would more likely be "courageous and
strong in her own meeting hall where only sisterly faces greet her
and conscious that she must assume all the responsibilities."

More
bluntly, Emma Olds, the Great Commander of Ohio, argued that
self-reliance was worthy of the name only if it came from the
initiative of women. She approvingly quoted President James A.
Garfield that the best lesson for a young man was to be "thrown
overboard." For Olds, it "should be equally helpful to character
building to women to be thrown upon their own business resources,
to be allowed and even compelled to rely upon their own judgment
and business sagacity."

The
value of thrift ranked high in the fraternal consensus, and the
Ladies of the Maccabees was no exception. It advertised the "ways
of thrift" as the "ways of pleasantness." Maggie L. Walker, the
head of the all-black Independent Order of St. Luke from 1899 to
1934, was much like her counterparts in white societies in singing
the praises of frugality. She established thrift clubs for the
young and, with a Franklinesque flourish, urged members "to save
some part of every dollar you have, and the practice will become a
habit--a habit which you will never regret, and of which you will
never grow shame."

If
self-reliance and thrift were fraternal watchwords, so too was
individualism. The word did not entail Epicurean self-gratification
or Emersonian contrariness; instead, it was akin to a winnowing out
process for the improvement of character. Successful fraternal
individualists were to be economically self-reliant as well as
proficient in the arts of cooperation and leadership. Although this
ideal entailed self-discipline, the ultimate goal was not purely,
or even mainly, selfish. For this reason, an official of the
all-black United Order of True Reformers rejected any contradiction
between opposition to "selfish individualism, intemperance and
non-accumulativeness" and support for a program enabling "people to
get homes and means upon which they may independently subsist."

A
key tenet of fraternal individualism was the need to exercise
mastery over the self. As a promotional publication of the
all-white Loyal Order of Moose put it, the "kingship of
self-control" was the "noblest royalty of a man. The self-control
he is taught to observe is the highest and best use of all his
faculties, the mastery of his desires, passions and appetites, and
the power to withstand temptation to the illegitimate use or
prostitution of any part of his being, body, mind, spirit, and
will." Self-control meant the power to resist such vices as
gluttony, "over-drinking, over-smoking, lack of exercise, bad air,
bad conversation, fool books."

But,
according to this pan-fraternal philosophy, such qualities were
useless unless tempered with civility. Vigilant watch was
maintained against those who endangered the harmony of the lodge by
indulging in personal attacks. As Mary MacEachern of the Ladies of
the Maccabees framed it, the "woman with a grievance is
welcome--nowhere." The Independent Order of Saint Luke required
that an initiate forswear "slandering a member of this Order or a
family of a member."

Nonpartisanship was another component of
the fraternal value consensus. The Ladies of the Maccabees was
typical in its rule that the organization be "non-sectarian" and
"non-political." Societies favored nonpartisanship to achieve
harmony and to widen the applicant pool. It was standard practice
for aspiring Republican and Democratic politicians to join all the
leading lodges in their community. Individuals who were bitter
rivals politically could co-exist under a common fraternal banner.
The Loyal Order of Moose was not unique when it signed up prominent
politicians from both parties--William Jennings Bryan, Theodore
Roosevelt, and Champ Clark.

Although the Ladies of the Maccabees
required that members eschew politics, this rule did not preclude
support for feminist causes. Many of its leaders played prominent
roles in suffrage and temperance organizations, such as Woman's
Christian Temperance Union, the National American Woman Suffrage
Association, and the League of Women Voters.

Though they too adopted a rule against
politics, the Independent Order of St. Luke and the United Order of
True Reformers did not ignore the question of race. Both marshaled
their resources against discriminatory legislation and lynching.
From 1923 until her death, Walker served on the board of the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and
formed common cause with the United Order of True Reformers in
protests against the Jim Crow streetcar law of 1904. It was partly
because of Walker's efforts that about 80 percent of eligible black
voters in Richmond by the 1920s were women.

All
five societies prohibited formal distinctions based on income and
class. The United Order of True Reformers boasted that it made
"capital and labor friends." Similarly, the ritual of the Ladies of
the Maccabees called on the initiate to know "no selfish ambitions,
no class distinctions." The better-off members were more often
leaders, but it was not hard to find examples such as that
described by the publicity for the Loyal Order of Moose, of a
"modest workingman" directing "the affairs of the lodge, while
seated in the meeting is his employer."

While fraternalists disdained
partisanship, they zealously promoted patriotism. The newsletter of
the Security Benefit Association phrased the matter bluntly: "The
Lodge System is the foe of the outlaw and the anarchist,
inculcating patriotism and love for country and that to live for
one's country is as essential as to die for it." The ritual of the
Ladies of the Maccabees required the initiate to "[b]ehold that
glorious banner, our Nation's Flag" and featured a group rendition
of "Flag of Our Nation." Fraternalists contended that patriotism
and good moral character were part of one package. The official
historian of the United Order of True Reformers, for instance,
defined as "good citizens" those who strived "to obey the laws of
the government, and to practice virtue, morality, industry, and
economy."

The
five societies promoted entrepreneurship among members but each
favored a different strategy to achieve this end. Though the Ladies
of the Maccabees did not own businesses or grant loans, it
endeavored to teach managerial and financial skills. One official
boasted that the lodge provided "business training which can be had
in no other way" by showing techniques "of handling money, and
ordinary business forms." It also taught more intangible skills.
The work of the lodge, according to the newsletter of the Ladies of
the Maccabees, cultivated habits of "patience, forbearance,
perseverance, and practicability."

In
contrast to the white societies, however, the United Order of the
True Reformers and the Independent Order of St. Luke actually
established their own business. In making this departure, the
United Order of True Reformers vowed not only to "take care of the
sick and bury the dead" but to create an organization "united in
finance" as well as "united in brotherhood." The most durable of
these black fraternal business enterprises were those of the
Independent Order of St. Luke. In 1903, it founded the Saint Luke
Penny Savings Bank of Richmond, thus making Maggie Walker the first
black woman to be a bank president in American history. The
Independent Order also established a printing plant, a newspaper
called the Saint Luke Herald , and,
for a brief time, a department store, the Saint Luke Emporium.

To
justify these investments, Maggie Walker argued that blacks could
never achieve dignity and first-class citizenship without laying an
economic foundation. She stressed the benefits that a black-owned
store such as the Saint Luke Emporium would bring to women as
consumers, where it would finally be possible to shop without fear
of facing disrespectful treatment from white merchants. Walker
underscored that this choice would never exist unless blacks
created a clientele by kicking their habit of spending paychecks in
white stores and white banks.

The
heyday of all five societies was during an era when millions of
Americans lived on a scale of poverty which would be considered
intolerable by today's underclass. Despite this, millions invested
their scarce resources in erecting a vast system of fraternal
mutual aid. Although insurance gave some protection, those who
subscribed to fraternal societies gained access to services not
easily guaranteed in a commercial contract. The lodge offered its
members the formal and informal components of mutual aid and sought
to educate them in a set of values.

The
ideals of these societies illustrate the many variants and the
breadth of the fraternal value consensus. The United Order of True
Reformers and the Independent Order of Saint Luke advanced programs
of ethnic self-help; the Ladies of the Maccabees wanted female
political and economic emancipation. For the Security Benefit
Association and the Loyal Order of Moose, the key goals were to
impart life skills and establish social-welfare institutions. There
was considerable diversity in the economic profile of the
memberships served by these organizations. These differences,
however, should not obscure the commonality. All these societies
drew from the same basic fraternal pantheon of self-help,
individualism, self-government, civility, and mutualism.

By
the 1930s, fraternal societies had entered a period of decline from
which they never recovered. While this trend was caused by several
factors, including increased competition from commercial insurance
and the lure of competing forms of entertainment, such as radio and
movies, it was fundamentally due to a transformation in the nature
of fraternalism. By the 1940s, conviviality and life insurance,
instead of mutual aid, became the order of the day. But these
inducements were rarely enough to attract and hold members.

One
of the earliest reasons for the shift in fraternal priorities can
be laid at the doorstep of the medical associations. As early as
the 1910s, the profession, increasingly fortified by tighter
certification requirements which reduced the supply of doctors, had
launched an all-out war against fraternal medical services by
imposing manifold sanctions, including denial of licenses against
doctors who accepted these contracts. One highly effective method
of enforcement was to pressure hospitals to close their doors to
fraternal members who used "lodge doctors." By 1914, Dr. Robert
Allen in the Journal of the American
Medical Association could state, with slight exaggeration,
that "there is scarcely a city in the country in which medical
societies have not issued edicts against members who accept
contracts for lodge practice." Some societies, such as the Security
Benefit Association, responded to this pressure by building
self-contained hospitals. They too, however, often ran afoul of
medical society pressure as well as a federal tax code that
discriminated in favor of third-party insurance.

Another factor in fraternal decline,
though tracing the exact relationship is difficult, was the rise of
the welfare state. The first three decades of the 20th century
brought a rapid and unprecedented expansion in the government's
social welfare role. The two leading sources of growth were
mothers' pensions and workers' compensation. In 1910, no state had
either program; by 1931, both were nearly universal. During the
1920s, the number of individuals on the mothers' pension rolls
almost doubled.

Certainly, there were more than a few
leaders of fraternal societies who predicted that this rising
welfare state would eventually undermine mutual aid. As the
magazine of the Fraternal Order of Eagles put in 1915, "the State
is doing or planning to do for the wage-earner what our Order was a
pioneer in doing eighteen years ago. All this is lessening the
popular appeal of our beneficial features. With that appeal
weakened or gone, we shall have lost a strong argument for joining
the Order; for no fraternity can depend entirely on its
recreational features to attract members."

During the 1930s, officials of the homes
for the elderly and orphans of the SBA cited Social Security and
other welfare programs as justification not only for rejecting
applicants but for closing down entirely. The Security Benefit
Association, for instance, closed its orphanage because of "a lack
of demand or need for that form of benevolence attributable to
public funds now available for the support of dependent children."
It used the same justification to discontinue its home for the
elderly several years later. While Mooseheart remained open and
even increased capacity, applications fell off rapidly in the
decades after the Depression because of a rise in social-welfare
alternatives such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

Mutual aid was a creature of necessity.
Once this necessity ended, so too did the primary reason for the
existence of fraternalism. Without a return to this necessity any
revival of mutual aid will remain limited. Moreover, fraternal
membership, although still heavily working class, no longer
includes the very poor who most need social welfare services.

Nevertheless, a reinvigoration of mutual
aid (though not necessarily through fraternal societies) is not out
of the question in the 21st century. One reform that would
encourage such a trend is to repeal or revise laws that subsidize
third-party insurance. Perhaps the leading example is legislation
enacted during World War II, which exempts employer-provided fringe
benefits, such as health insurance, from income tax. According to
John C. Goodman, the annual value of this exemption adds up to an
enormous $130 billion. For a typical autoworker, for example, it is
over $1,200 per year. Federal tax policy has not only tied workers
to their jobs but has undermined their incentives to purchase
health insurance through non-governmental organizations such as
fraternal societies. It has also created a perverse system where
workers lose all their benefits when they change jobs or become
unemployed. By contrast, if individuals had the same tax incentives
to purchase insurance from associations, such as lodges, as they do
now from their employer they could still retain full coverage even
if they changed jobs.

The
shift from mutual aid and self-help to the welfare state was not
just a simple bookkeeping transfer of service provisions from one
set of institutions to another. As many of the leaders of fraternal
societies had feared, much was lost in an exchange that transcended
monetary calculations. The old relationships of voluntary
reciprocity and autonomy have slowly given way to paternalistic
dependency. Instead of mutual aid, the dominant social-welfare
arrangements of Americans have increasingly become characterized by
impersonal bureaucracies controlled by outsiders.

David T. Beito is assistant
professor of history at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and
is the author of From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State:
Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967 (University of North Carolina Press).